Lagos to Zambujaira do Mar 76.13 km A somewhat difficult start to the day. It started with me finding out that I left my Garmin GPS in the apartment, followed up by Jaap, who left his bike during the night in the corridor of the building outside the apartment finding out that he “had a flat tire". Both events delayed our start. As it worked out, Jaap’s tire had not a problem. A joker had left the air out of the tire. A nice man in a nearby bike shop nearby was able to detect the problem quickly. Picking up the key to the apartment I was able to recuperate my Garmin. The day was plagued with strong rain and winds; fortunately, most of the winds were sideways or in the back. An unpleasant experience biking ... read more

Little to tell today. Last night I took a sleeping pill and slept well. One of our travel companions (Mark) missed his flight connection in Lisbon yesterday evening and only arrived at 2.00 pm today. Gave me time to get better adjusted and prepared. We are now leaving tomorrow morning at 8.00am. We have had a long discussion about the route to take. At least we came to an agreement for tomorrow; later we see and discuss it again. "We" is a bit of an overstatement it reallyI means Mark and Jaap, I have little to add. I just follow my 2 fellow travelers, they are the ones with the experience.Tomorrow is a big day. Makes me a bit nerv... read more

Thursday and Friday March 23 and 24, 2017 It's over, time to return to our part of the world again. Our flight leaves at 14.30 PM Sydney time and we will be arriving in San Francisco the same day (23rd) on 9.30 AM. Although there obviously is a logical explanation for the time difference, nevertheless it is always somewhat amazing to me that when going in the direction of Australia and countries alike, you lose a day and coming back, you gain the day back. The corresponding jetlag to these time differences is less amazing, and, particularly when flying back, less amusing. The flight is pleasant, but as expected long, over 14 hours. Qantas is a great airline with very good service. What is different with Qantas is that they are totally adapted to the long ... read more

Tuesday, March 21, 2017 Birthday of our youngest grandchild, Philip Ignacio. Happy birthday and may your future hold many interesting voyages. Today was a typical "tourist day"; we bought a "hop on hop off ticket" giving us the flexibility to get on and off the bus at those places we wanted to visit. In theory that should work well, but in practice we only used one leg of the 13 stops the bus makes. Difficult to match the timing of your visits with the itinerary of the bus. Additionally the weather did not cooperate today. The rain showers and thunderstorms announced for yesterday, made their appearance today. We made the most of our day, visiting the anglican St Paul Cathedral. Anglican churches can easily be confused with roman catholic ones. In broad lines they have the ... read more

Sunday, March 19, 2017 A travel day. Our flight to Melbourne was on 15.00, which gave us ample time to check out of the hotel and go to mass. We had visited the cathedral of Canberra the day before, which made it easier to find. We attended mass and had the opportunity to greet the bishop that performed the mass. We introduced ourselves and complemented him on the mass and the cathedral, upon which we received his blessing. Not something that happens every day. Turning the car in at the airport turned out to be a bit more complicated than we expected. The directions given by the gps were not all that clear, which led to use both Margarita's and my phone for directions. Once we had turned in the car, and had made our way ... read more